The Good and The Bad
By Blake VandeBunte • Mar 15th, 2009 • Category: 2009 Season, Dontrelle Willis, Eddie Bonine, Mike Maroth, Nate RobertsonI’ve been pretty quick to point out some of the Tigers’ pitching problems this spring. There have been plenty of poor performances over the past three or four weeks and I think it’s fair to write about them. For example:
- Dontrelle Willis struggled again on Saturday against the Toronto Blue Jays. He coughed up four runs in three innings. The optimists out there will say that he struggled to start the game but was okay over his final two innings. I can get behind that line of thinking from time-to-time but not with Willis. It seems like were saying that after everyone of his starts.
However, the Tigers got two good pitching performances after Willis was removed from the game.
- Eddie Bonine pitched the game’s final three innings. He gave up only one hit and allowed no other baserunners. Bonine, who started a few games in 2008, has an ERA of 1.13 this spring. While he probably isn’t in line for a big league job, it’s nice to see him pitching well.
- Nate Robertson came on in the fourth after Willis was pulled. Nate has struggled as much as Dontrelle has this spring but he came out pitched well on Saturday. He allowed a leadoff single in the fourth and the next batter reached on an error. However, Robertson set down the next nine batter in order as he lowered his spring ERA to 5.14. While that number is much higher than you’d like, all you need to see in the spring is improvement and Nate was much better yesterday.
On an interesting and sad side note, the Tigers got back into the game yesterday because of Mike Maroth. The former Tiger is trying to make it back to the big league with the Jays and was absolutely destroyed. Maroth gave up seven hits and three walks in only 2.2 innings. All told, he gave up 5 runs and took the loss.
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Has Dontrelle ever used a rake? Maybe they can just put him on the ground crew.